The crux of the innovation

When it comes to entrepreneurial success, we often talk about Innovation. However, we are constantly working against them.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses'.
Pathetic quotes like these are often mottos of great innovation advocates. The picture once painted by Henry Ford tells of bold thoughts and big steps into the unknown. Sure, asking people what they want does not always point in the right direction. But the fact is: away from creativity workshops, we find it very difficult to reinvent the wheel.

Versino Financial Suite for SAP Business One Finance

Routine, control, planning

In order to meet the ultimate goal ? growth ? of the western economic machinery, a company is subject to the following prerequisites above all: Routine, control and predictability. This is not necessarily bad and successful companies function (up to a point) according to this principle. As a provider and consultant of ERP software we provide companies from the most diverse sectors and with the most diverse tasks, functions and apply them to their processes. Always with the aim of improving their processes so that their daily work becomes more efficient and predictable (in both the short and long term). All to ensure consistency and avoid crises. If only it were always like this, because at the end of the day, life cannot be planned.

In the net of systematics

And that is precisely where the contradiction arises. Because, according to Darwin, it's survival of the fittest. In the harsh realms of the free market economy, the one who rethinks quickly and reacts to crises. In other words, the one who is innovative ? But innovation can never be routinised, planned or controlled. The most successful ideas arise from coincidences ? and not infrequently from crises. But we want to avoid them at all costs.

Once this paradox is recognised, it also becomes clear why we follow the speed with which the changes - through the increased digitalisation of the world of work - rush past us with our jaws open, while they leave us helpless and without a plan. We have become entangled in the web of our Calculations and systems and now wonder why everything is going so slowly with the change.

Breaking open systems: Crises are opportunities

A first change for all of us would perhaps be to no longer avoid crises, but to plan for them. And while we're at it, let's change their negative semantics. Let's plan for surprises. Let's create the basis for a working world in which the sentence: 'Something has happened' is not answered with: 'Oh God, what', but changes are seen as opportunities for a better result.

Software systems should also change. Instead of drawing a manifested picture of a company and its processes, solutions should emerge that allow companies to be flexible and grow freely.

SAP B1 blog